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Hébert: Vaughan by-election a likely momentum-killer for Ignatieff

If the Liberals fail to hold the Vaughan seat, the message to their MPs will be that they will have to
count on their own wits rather than those of their leader to survive the
next campaign.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, second from left, and newly announced Conservative candidate Julian Fantino pose for photos while making a surprise stop for lunch at The Ice Cream Patio restaurant in Vaughan, Ont., October 15, 2010. (Darren Calabrese / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

The federal Liberal party has been up and down in the polls since Michael Ignatieff became its leader almost two years ago but he still has to pass his first real electoral test.

That test is expected to be upon the Liberal leader shortly and if the Conservatives can help it, it will kill Ignatieff’s already modest momentum in the bud.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is within days of calling a series of by-elections to fill vacant seats in Manitoba and Ontario, including one in the GTA riding of Vaughan.

Ignatieff’s first bite at the election apple last fall was a bitter experience. His party placed a distant third in four ridings spread right across Canada. The saving grace for the rookie leader was that it had been decades since the Liberals had held any of the seats then at play.

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The upcoming vote in Vaughan is different. When Maurizio Bevilacqua resigned his seat to run for mayor in late August, he had held the riding since the 1988 free-trade election.

Over the Chrétien/Martin years, Bevilacqua routinely won Vaughan with more than 60% of the vote. In 2008 — a low-tide election year for the Liberals — he still secured 49% of all ballots cast and an 8,000+ majority.

A Liberal defeat in Vaughan would do damage to caucus morale at least on par with Stéphane Dion’s 2007 loss of Outremont to the NDP.

Like Outremont back then, Vaughan should really be an ideal launching pad for a star Liberal recruit. On that front, though, the Conservatives have beaten the Liberals to the punch by wooing former OPP commissioner Julian Fantino to run in Vaughan.

In Outremont three years ago, the NDP had also hit the ground running, securing Thomas Mulcair as its candidate at a time when the Liberals were still searching for a flag-bearer.

Fantino’s profile is not that of a sacrificial lamb. If the Conservatives did not think they had a shot at winning Vaughan, he would not be running.

Dion did not lack for extenuating circumstances to account for the 2007 Outremont fiasco. The Liberal infrastructure in Quebec was in shambles. His recent past as a unity minister was a liability in his home province and Mulcair boasted roots in the provincial Liberal party that facilitated a switch from the Liberals to the NDP.

None of those handicaps apply to the Liberals in Vaughan. If they fail to hold a seat that has long been part of their Ontario power base, the message to their MPs will be that they will have to count on their own wits rather than those of their leader to survive the next campaign.

The prospect of another spell in opposition could induce some of them not to run again and discourage new talent from coming to the fore.

And then, unless Ignatieff demonstrates that he has the potential to beat Harper in a general election, he will have a hard time prying anti-Conservative votes off the NDP and the Bloc Québécois in the next campaign.

That potential remains in doubt.

Based on the latest numbers Ekos assembled for the CBC last week, pollster Frank Graves projected 92 Liberal seats — not enough to win government but still a significant improvement on the 77 ridings the party salvaged in the last election.

But looking at the election map, it is harder to put a name to 15 new Liberal ridings than it is to find the dozen seats the Conservatives could win on their way to a governing majority.

Chantal Hébert is a national affairs writer. Her column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

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